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This is basically an anti-establishment critical view of the Indian Radio World which is plagued by the Herd Mentality crippling innovation and evolution of creativity that is so omnipresent in our blood

Thursday, March 29, 2012

I can very well hang my head in shame when it comes to my
sincerity in writing this blog, damn I don’t even know why I write this or why
cant I get my head and fingers together to write few paragraphs on this blog,
the blog which is my own!

Lets quickly get back to business, its another matter of
shame that there are very few blogs which are there on radio or damn! it could
even be greater shame that there might be plentiful but its me who is not aware
of them :p

So radio is moving on, like a pendulum its swinging from one
side to another and I don’t know if you feel about it the same. Let me share my
perspective on why I say that. So I moved to Hyderabad almost a year back, and there was one station and RJ which I
instantly fell for, hook line and sinker!,
even though she would host an all telugu
show. Telugu is a language which I know nothing of, though I do understand a
bit here and there of other south Indian languages, so considering that ,
falling for that station and RJ meant she was really good. Time moved on and slowly
she moved on as well to doing a bilingual and trilingual show though still it
was more of telugu but I started understanding her conversations and jock talks
plus the music became bilingual, which started making me more at ease. For me
she was one of the best Jock that I had heard in recent times.

However just as I was listening to that channel few days
back with her being on the mike I realized that the station had lost its USP,
the sound was no longer “crisp”, high energy became more of “shouting”, the
sweetness of high frequency voice became more of a shrill and in an attempt to
sound “uber cool” her ride on the songs started becoming irritating for
they would land right on to the vocals of the song. I must say it takes a lot
of flak and self-restraint and bulldozing in the mind to stay away from riding
on a song, for trust me its such a high when you do it, its like zipping on a
road with you in the cockpit piloting an airplane, its painful for the rest
both on the airplane and outside, but you get the juice of your life. However
if you can manage purely out of intuition to land where the vocals end and
finish off your yapp where the next vocals start then it becomes equally
pleasurable for your listeners as well but does that happen? In this jock’s
case naah, not on the days and times when I tuned in so what did I do, I just
moved on to the next channel or the narcissist king that I am I moved on to
playing my own on air recording which is equally good in fueling for my high.

I must admit that I haven’t kept myself updated on the
recent developments on the On air playback softwares but I doubt if there is a
software which tells you in the song where all you as a jock can ride on with
your yapp, though RCS does tell you when the vocal in the song is beginning so
most of the jocks try to zip on the song at the beginning but never in the
middle, for the system doesn’t tell you when you must stop. This station
unfortunately doesn’t just have this problem alone, looks like the one who
stiches their sound is also loading himself with a lot of ear wax for the sound
fabric is also bad, someone should fine tune frequency response of her mike,
you cant listen to someone shouting at you and that too when you set the
expectation of being a music station but end up becoming a talk station during
this show. Remember barring the on air talent everything else is achievable
with the technology and there is no doubt that she is oodles of talent, one of the few real high energy jock,s she can
very well stand in the league of Nikhil Chinnappa and Nitin(Jonathan) when it
comes to firing maximum number of words per seconds so people that be out there
,please do something.

I wish I started scanning the channels in Hyderabad for the good
thing is most of the stations are returning to playing bilingual which I think is
because they want to once again be in preparation for the next wave of FM
Stations due for auction by second half of this year. Radio-one has once again
shown the path, they have been the most daring stations right from their days
of Radio Midday and even when they were Go 92.5 they led the path until the
time when they were on the verge of extinction due to loses and had to listen
to their investors and change to one of the masses station. Radio one recently
again went all international and I wish Anil, Anita, Anjaan and loads of my
other friends from the gang of real radio enthusiasts as I call them, for not
just success but whole lot of innovation and market leadership.

Quickly summing up the positions, Gold FM still is number 1
in delhi with 19.1% of listenership, second is Fever FM with 18.9%, third is
Mirchi with 15.2%. Radio City is fourth with 12.4%, fifth is RedFM with12.1% and sixth is Big FM with 7.5%. Radio One is
Seventh with 4.7%, Eight is Oye FM with 3.9% and Ninth is Rainbow with 2.4%.
Hits the only other English station is tenth with 2.1% listenership in the 12+
category as per RAM data for the period mid feb to mid march 2012.

10-11AM slot of Gold FM is the most popular show in terms of
listeners tuning into. Gold FM is third in Mumbai with 13.9% listenership and 9th
in Kolkata with 3.3% Listenership.
Rainbow is 5th in Bangalore with 6.3% listenership, 10th
in Kolkatta with 2.4% listenership and 9th in Mumbai with 4.2%
listenership.

If you have nothing better to listen to on the radio, you can bore yourself by listening into my latest show here